benvanderbeek

I was talking to a (print) design friend the other day who's trying to learn to code. It's interesting to explain to a non-programmer what kind of person will/can become a programmer. If you don't love solving problems by digging and automating, then you will never be a programmer. As you say, not because of intelligence but rather desire and enjoyment.

Check my math, it's saying 33,000 out of "at least" 310,000 - so something like 10.6% of all downloads were on the Amazon Appstore right?

Good point, I stand corrected.

When I read an article linked from Hacker News, then read some comments that are generally not tearing it to pieces, I assume the author must have some credibility and therefore is not throwing out conclusions for fun. Also, I have a minor in inferring existence of fascinating undetected evidence.

"More recently we've seen comparison sites with customer ratings to supply metadata about, for example, supplier reliability: but these tread dangerously close to defamation in some cases: see for example the class action lawsuit against Yelp (alleging extortion: dismissed, but shows the shape of things to come). Price comparisons are relatively safe."

As someone intimately familiar w/3rd party seller feedback on Amazon, I can tell you that the feedback there is taken very seriously by 3rd party sellers, by customers, and by Amazon. If a seller drops below a rating threshold, they are warned, and if the poor ratings persist, they're given the kiss of death: their "Featured Merchant" status is revoked.

I've never heard any suggestion of these ratings treading "dangerously close to defamation."

IMO, online feedback / reputations are very successful at rewarding good sellers and punishing bad ones. So this paragraph is a pretty weak dismissal of customer ratings as a way of proving a value add.

Yes there's definitely the prime vs non prime vs 3rd party price differences.

But are you sure there's no evidence of what he references? He seems pretty explicit, and it seems a very odd conclusion w/no specific evidence: "prices on offer to different customers varying for the same product, presumably on the basis of the customer's willingness to pay more for goods in prior transactions."

FYI the post-email-confirmation click through goes to http://hireshot.com/ which is a dead link for me.

Thanks, signed up. Any screenshots or overviews available?

I agree it's irritating to see people going for the same silly shock value by declaring this or that dead.

And I really like "the imminent dead" and hope it was not a typo (dead vs death). I may start saying that.

I'm truly impressed at how you stated the point about Graffiti / Banksy while simultaneously explaining why it doesn't really have any bearing on the topic at hand.

Some rumors say they will in 2012 http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-31747_7-20083044-243/rumor-new-...

"Amazon.com staff — seriously, just look at this from the customer’s point of view, and try to tell me this is a customer friendly process."

I don't believe Amazon views any seller, let alone someone selling used items occasionally, as a customer. The buyer is their customer. 3rd party sellers are mostly interchangeable. If you are a professional seller with enough volume however, you have a direct human account rep who can at least provide more insight into processes such as this.

Understood. You were referring to what is, not stating an opinion on what should be. The term "right" can get very confusing (e.g. "God-given" vs "constitutional").

Everyone besides me probably already knew, but "Wall has been trademarked by Facebook" ? Wow.

Is there a particular philosophy or school of thought (no pun intended) that leads you to this conviction? There's a difference between saying "I personally believe that everyone deserves a free public education," and saying education is a "guaranteed right that the government is supposed to deliver upon."

Or are you just saying that currently education is required by law and should remain so?

What's your basis for stating that education is a basic/guaranteed right?

I also had a nightmare managing programmers in the Philippines, 75% from my incompetency, 25% from other factors. Having my guys w/in a few feet is invaluable to me now.

I was involved in an accident where I caused a fatality in 1999 (guy sleeping in my lane on a rural highway at 3am), so it's not on here. Otherwise I would be able to say something about its accuracy and completeness.

I agree. I'm a paying customer, I love Grooveshark (and the jailbreak-only iPhone app that I've missed since switching to the 4S), but it's always been obvious that it's just a matter of time before they get shut down. I'm surprised they've lasted this long.

> I would also use the auto-complete to find things as a second (distant) use case.

I launch programs and find files like this every day. I find it one of the most useful features of 7 vs earlier versions (though I skipped Vista so maybe it was there too).

Sounds like Focus from Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky

Without anger or despair you have sorrow and grief, but we're not good at that in America either.

Agreed. Its best if your looking for they're bad grammar.

I was somewhat concerned that this film would promote government enforcement of net neutrality. In an email conversation I had with him, the writer of this film compared Thomas Jefferson's view of the necessity of an affordable, reliable postal service with the current necessity for affordable, reliable internet access. That seemed like a pretty good point to this skeptic.

If you think this is a film worth making/seeing, send to a couple friends. Currently 93 backers, $14,999 pledged of $150,000 goal, 17 days to go.

Chrome version? 11.0.696.68

I use the Gmail Chrome web app: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pjkljhegncpnkpknbc...

Removes URL, makes the favicon the windows taskbar icon.

If by "upset" you mean "out of business." There are hundreds(?) of multi-million-dollar businesses who do the vast majority of their volume as a seller on the Amazon Marketplace.

On second thought, I guess there would be a short term huge increase of sales on eBay, where most Amazon sellers also sell, so I guess "out of business" is hyperbole.

Do Marketplace Web Services not count? https://developer.amazonservices.com/

The seller will drop ship it from another seller or they cancel the order. Not a lot of options. As long as they don't do it too often it won't affect their feedback ratings noticeably.

Yep they exist. Sellers are pretty hesitant to say who they use since that is handing business intelligence to their competitors.